Bashara: I gotta get this done,' witness testifies

(Macomb Daily staff photo by David Dalton) Bob Bashara appears in 36th District Court in Detroit on Tuesday for his preliminary examination, at which he was ordered to face trial in Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit.

A Detroit furniture store owner testified Tuesday that Bob Bashara paid him $2,000 as a down payment to have someone kill Joe Gentz, a defendant and potential witness against him in murder of Bashara’s wife.

Steven Tibaudo, 54, of St. Clair Shores, testified in Bashara’s preliminary examination that he secretly recorded he and Bashara talking in three in-person meetings, two at Tibaudo’s store on Detroit’s east sideand one at an apartment building on Jefferson Avenue in St. Clair Shores owned by Bashara. Tibaudo has known Bashara about 10 years as a regular customer.

Bashara, 54, of Grosse Pointe Park, told Tibaudo June that he wanted someone to “take care” of Gentz after he had been arrested and was housed in a Hamtramck detention facility for the January strangling death of Jane Bashara, 56, according to the recordings.

“He was talking about, ‘This is my life. I gotta get this done,’” Tibaudo said.

Advertisement

Gentz is also charged with conspiracy to commit murder although a second suspect has not been charged.

Bashara was bound over by Judge Kenneth King of 36th District Court in Detroit to Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit on a charge of solicitation of murder, punishable by up to life prison. He faces a July 31 pretrial hearing in circuit court.

Bashara has not been charged for his wife’s death but was named by police as a person of interest in the case.

Bashara asked the percentage chance Gentz could be killed in jail. Tibaudo told Bashara it could be done, such as by having crushed glass placed in his food.

“I told him anybody could be hit where they’re at,” Tibaudo testified.

Bashara at their third meeting June 25 gave Tibaudo $2,000 in $100 bills in Tibaudo’s office at Steve’s Furniture and Appliance at Chalmers Road and East Warren Avenue, with the intent to pay $20,000. Bashara, Tibaudo said, asked for a receipt, so Tibaudo gave him an invoice that made it appear he had purchased appliances.

The audio recordings – made from recorders given to Tibaudo by Michigan State Police and the FBI -- were difficult to hear in the courtroom but King and attorneys said they could decipher most of the verbiage.

Bashara during their meetings suspected that Tibaudo may have been “wearing a wire” and at least twice “patted down” Tibaudo, Tibaudo said.

“He said that if I’m wearing a wire ‘to just shoot me now,’” Tibaudo said.

Tibaudo said Bashara often whispered to him while making potentially incriminating statements, including making reference to a “conspiracy.”

Tibaudo also testified to an incident in mid-to-late summer last year when Bashara pulled Tibaudo from inside the store to an alley outside to ask him if he knew of someone who could “take care” of a female tenant.

“He said he had a female who was making his life hell,” Tibaudo said. “He said he needed a tenant taken care of. I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘I would like to have her either t-boned or run over by a car. Do you know of anybody that care take care of it?’

“I told him I had a couple of cop friends who could help you out. He said, ‘What, are you? F-ing crazy?’

“I just looked in his eyes and I’m thinking, ‘No, but you are.’ I didn’t say it but I looked in his eyes.”

Bashara’s attorney. David Griem, didn’t argue against the case being bound over, pointing out Wayne County prosecutors had to reach to reach a low standard for “probable cause.”

But afterward, outside court, Griem defended Bashara, saying he made “a terrible mistake in judgment” by approaching Tibaudo. He said Bashara wanted Tibaudo to discover more information about Gentz’ relationship with his friend, Steve Virgona, related to the murder case.

“I think what Bob Bashara was trying to do was mistakenly following some advice he had been given from our investigators to develop the relationship between” Gentz, Tibaudo and Virgona, who chauffeured Gentz to police interviews in Grosse Pointe Park.

“What I believe Bob Bashara was trying to do … in trying to develop information that would help investigators made a terrible mistake in judgment. He was trying to reach out to Steve Tibaudo to get information regarding Steve Virgona and the relationship between Virgona and Joe Gentz. We believe that one of those two Steves was the individual who drove Joe Gentz to the Bashara house” on the night of the murder.

Griem at the start of the hearing was denied in his request to adjourn it because Bashara has hired a new attorney, Mark Kriger, who could not attend because he was in trial in U.S. District Court in Detroit.

Griem also protested Bashara being dressed in a jail blue outfit, as opposed to street clothes that he wore at his prior court hearing. He said Bashara’s image being shown in media reports will prejudice the jury pool.

“There’s a perception that is sent out to potential jurors in Wayne County, and that perception is not a good one,” he said.

He referred to prior law enforcement “leaks” about the case to the media.

“We’re just further poisoning the potential jury,” he said.

Griem after the hearing predicted that Kriger will ask the circuit court judge to remand the case back to 36th District Court to redo the hearing.

“Mark my words you’ll be back here for another preliminary examination for Bob Bashara,” he said. “Defense attorneys use it (preliminary examination) to lay a foundation for what they’re going to do at trial. Any time another attorney is conducting the prelim exam it makes it that much more difficult to win at trial because different attorneys have different styles, strategies.”

Griem repeated his forecast that he believes Bashara eventually will be charged with his wife’s murder.

Jane Bashara’s body was found Jan. 25 in her SUV Mercedes in an alley on Detroit’s east side. Gentz has reportedly told police Bob Bashara paid him to strangled her in her Middlesex Street garage.

Also Tuesday, a Detroit TV station reported that Jane Bashara’s mother, Lorraine Englebrecht, was locked out of her daughter’s house Tuesday morning by Bob Bashara’s cousin, Stephanie Samuel-Lucas,who has taken over control of the house.

Police arrived but told her they could not do anything about it. Englebrecht said she would contact an attorney, according to the report.

She told the station that Sameul-Lucas has power of attorneyand has begun moving everything out of the house, including Jane’s items.